Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Kibbles and Bits and one Zippy Planet

About: Join us each Monday to win books, swag or other prizes. There will be a chance to chat with authors and talk about books. Lots of prizes!!
Each and every week (excluding some holidays) there will be giveaways offered. Stop by and enter to win a prize and to chat with authors and fellow readers. Let's make it a party!

I’m penciled in for October 28th and will be giving away the complete Breakthrough trilogy in one of those cool box sets.

Character Development:LD Masterson posted a great idea regarding developing characters. Give your character a birth date and use the traits from the appropriate astrological sign. I never thought of this. I’m not a zodiac kinda guy, but hey, a writer can glean some great ideas this way.

Urban Dictionary:I've been taking
advantage of the Urban Dictionary.
Wish I had discovered this site a long time ago. It has really helped me write
certain sections of Escalation (currently in the editing stage). Check it out
and Get Your Learn On

Foodie Craze: I'm going through a garlic craze again. I do this every few months or so. Lasagna, spaghetti, garlic bread, basically any Italian cuisine will do. I might not be pleasant to be around this week.

This Weekend: Another shipment of books are arriving Friday and I can’t wait to hit the beaches with my Square Card Reader and sell some more books. Sure wish sales would reflect on Amazon and my sales rank, but unfortunately they don’t.

Did You Know: There is a difference in the meaning of the words revolve and rotate? Example" The Earth revolves (orbits) around the sun while it rotates (spins) on it's axis.

Fun Fact: The fastest rotating planet in our solar system, and thus has the shortest days, is Jupiter at about ten hours. Consider the Jovian planet's size, this is very, very fast.

Venus takes 224.65 days to complete each orbit (revolve) around the sun. This is a little less than a year on Earth. But instead of a similar rotational period to Earth’s 24 hours, Venus takes 243 days to rotate once.

In other words, a day on Venus is longer than a year. This is the longest day in the entire Solar System. Even stranger, Venus rotates backwards compared to the other planets in the Solar System. Reference

If you could stand on the surface of Venus, the Sun would appear to rise in the West and then set in the East.

Bonus Fun Fact: SWEEPS-10, an exoplanet candidate, has the shortest orbital period (revolve) known (so far). It orbits its parent star from a distance of about 750,000 miles. This is so close that a year on this zippy planet occurs once every 10 hours. Reference